Nursing association leaders anticipate 2010 opportunities

Nursing leaders predict 2010 will provide new opportunities for nurses in Kansas and Missouri.

“We just look forward to seeing what the new year brings,” said Missouri Nurses Association Executive Director Jill Kliethermes, APRN, FNP-BC.

Kliethermes said advanced practice nurses in Missouri should be able to start prescribing schedule 3 through 5 drugs this year. Missouri legislators passed a measure to allow the state’s advanced practice nurses to prescribe these controlled drugs in 2008.

The change has to go through the state’s rules and regulations process before it can be enacted, which can be time consuming, Kliethermes said. She said she hopes the process will be complete within the next six to nine months.

Kliethermes said she wants to take more steps in the 2010 legislative session to allow utilization of advanced practice nurses.

“Nurses need to play a vital role as the largest health care provider discipline and they need to be utilized to their highest scope of practice,” Kliethermes said.

Nurse practitioners are often used in hospitals and clinics. They focus on wellness and prevention. Kliethermes said she wants advanced practice nurses to use their full scope of practice.

Nurse practitioners currently work with a collaborating physician. Kliethermes said the Missouri Nurses Association will keep an eye on any 2010 legislative items that involve nurse practitioners.

“Of course we’ll watch to see if any physician colleagues come out with anything that would be concerning to nursing,” Kliethermes said.

Kansas State Nurses Association President Patricia Plank, RN, MSN, said she hopes to create more autonomy for advanced practice nurses in Kansas as well.

Plank said she would like to see advanced practice nurses work with physicians in a collaborative role, not one that puts the nurse under the supervision of the physician.

“It will be a true collaboration and not a supervisory role,” Plank said.

She said she hopes to see legislation with independent practice language passed in 2010.

“There’s a good possibility,” Plank said.

But advanced practice nurses are not the only nurses for which association leaders advocate. Kliethermes and Plank said they promote all nurses in all areas of the profession.

“Nurses practice in a wide variety of settings, not just hospitals,” Plank said. “Nurses are everywhere.”

Colleges and universities are an area where nurses remain in high demand on both sides of the state line.

“We continue to have a huge nursing faculty shortage and that trend hasn’t changed,” Kliethermes said. “There’s a huge demand for faculty to teach nursing, and I think that trend will continue.”

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